TECHNOLOGY PROOF OF CONCEPT SAMPLE

An example of documentation prepared to support an architectural assessment completed for a small system. This document is a good example of how the methodology can be employed on a project of any scale. Due to the small scale of this project, three documents were combined into this document: Current Situation Assessment, Requirements Definition, and the Proof of Concept evaluation.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Technical Proof of Concept phase is concluded with the presentation of this document.

The results of this phase are clear: The consultants feel that Clipper is a viable tool for development of the new AAA system which will replace the current AAA application at the XYZ Company.This opinion has been reached after a two-week investigative process which involved a five-day site visit to the XYZ, followed by consultation with industry experts in the areas of systems development, networking, and database management systems.

The only major inhibitor to using Clipper is its performance when providing on-line update access to large files. The volume of data for tracking ‘movements’ is very large.However the performance impact can be minimized by transferring data to off-line read only files for report generation.

Development in Clipper offers a clear advantage in terms of maintainability. Clipper is an easy to use language which is known by many developers.Increased maintainability results in greater opportunity for evolution of both the application and its use by the XYZ.Since Clipper uses an industry standard X-base file structure,the XYZ is strategically positioned to take advantage of other development tools in the future while maintaining their investment in existing data bases.

The XYZ Company’s (XYZ) current AAA system (AAA), in production since July of 1990, was originally intended to enable a reduced staff in the Administration Section to efficiently and effectively process a large volume of claims; this goal has not been achieved.In addition, the current AAA lacks important functionality, and does not provide effective use by multiple departments.

The current AAA was developed in an environment, ZIM, which is not familiar to many computer specialists.As a result, enhancements to the existing system are not easily accomplished and in many cases have been abandoned.

In April of 1993, the XYZ issued a request for proposal (RFP) for development of a new AAA to meet its requirements. They identified a development environmentusing Clipper to ease implementation of any future requirements.

With extensive experience in the Clipper environment, the consultants were concerned that a solution developed with Clipper would not support a mission critical application such as the XYZ AAA.

In response to the RFP, the consultants proposed a technical proof of concept as the first step leading to development of the new AAA system.

The XYZ Company (XYZ) administers the Assistance Program (AP).This program is designed to provide assistance to shippers and manufacturers located in the Region, by reimbursing carriers for reductions in rates.

The program divides carriers into four major groups:

The Rail Program

The Basic Westbound Program

The Selective Westbound Program

The Intra Program

Before becoming eligible for assistance, participants make application to the Company.Upon authorization, the participant is added to the list of authorized carriers, and claims may be processed.

Claims are received by the Company for carriers requesting reimbursement under the program.Before claims are approved for payment they must be verified.This verification will ensure that the claim is correct, and that the movements and commodities meet the requirements of the specific program group.

Once claims have been verified and approved for payment, the Finance and Administration section carries out the payment process through the Payment System (PS).

Based on information gathered during the claim verification process, a carrier may be audited.Results of the field audit may be fed back into AAA in the form of comments regarding a specific carrier.

Volume of data is one of the major factors which will influence the viability of a system developed with Clipper.The following table summarizes the volume contribution of the data stores which provide the greatest volumes of data to the current AAA.

The current system has some strengths, omissions, and many problems which concern all users, and which have highlighted the need for a replacement system.

This section will discuss the problems, strengths, and opportunities for improvement of the current system.The issues discussed in this section are a combination of observations made during the technical proof of concept site visit and interviews, and of issues raised in the Request for Proposal Terms of Reference and supporting documentation.

From a user perspective, the primary problems with the current system involve response time and system availability.By far the worst problem is the fact that when payments are being run, no other AAA users may access the system; other problems include

The single strength of the current system is in the area of claims control.The system provides acceptable tracking of carriers and their claims throughout the certification, claim, and payment processes.

Accessibility in the current system is impacted as users perform database-wide access through payment generation.Essentially, all tables are subjected to a file-lock which overrides and disallows all other attempts at locking at any level.

AAA performance problems are evident in unacceptable response times, and are a function of workstation capability, ineffective use of workstation memory by AAA, database design and distribution, and network performance.

Maintainability problems are caused by the environment under which the current system was developed (ZIM); this development environment is not supported locally or internally by the XYZ.This has impacted the ability of the XYZ to make corrections and enhancements to the system.

Data capture and tracking problems are a symptom of requirements which have not been fulfilled by the current AAA.Essentially, development of the current AAA was never completed, so required functionality is not available.

The current AAA application does not make effective use of workstation memory.As a result, increased memory capacity does not improve performance of the application, and does not allow for installation of additional software components such as virus protection software.

The network has limited bandwidth, to the point that large volume transactions are likely to have a significant impact on overall performance.Further, the network segmentation is such that cable lengths are at their maximum.

Novell-recommended procedures aimed at ensuring network performance and stability have not been implemented.A procedure should be established to cycle (cold boot) each server at least every 30 days.At the time of writing the Office server had been operational for 131 days and the Region server had been operational for 53 days.

A procedure should be implemented to regularly purge deleted data to free up disk storage.

At the time of writing, the CACHE BUFFER for the Region server was at 42%.Any number below 50% should be investigated because running too low can lead to a system crash. Another couple of MB of memory on the Region server may be warranted.

Archival of data does not take place.The database design and apparent table-wide techniques of some processes in addition to the retention of historical data contribute to the unacceptable response time of some processes.

Access to data and system functions should be controlled on a per user basis.This will avoid inadvertent changes to data, and lead to higher productivity as users are not presented with options for which they do not have permission.

The method of selection of carriers is expected to change in the interface from the replacement system.This selection will take the form of a flexible query, enabling the random selection of carriers, based on various criteria.

The data interchange will not change from the existing AAA method, in which a text file containing data for the selected carriers is exported from AAA and imported into the ALCS by XYZ staff.

The interface to this system will remain the specification of special payment commitment and financial coding numbers which will indicate, following payment import into PS, that payments should be made according to the PAYE.

It is expected that two methods will be used to receive carrier claims into the new AAA:

·data entry from hard copy submitted by carrier

·ext file import

The methods by which carriers will submit claims in electronic form for import into the replacement system are:

·diskette

·file transfer via modem (future requirement)

In order to facilitate preparation of claims by carriers, to be submitted electronically, a carrier claim submission application must be developed.This system must have minimal requirements in terms of additional components required for use by the carrier.The system must produce the text file required for import into the replacement AAA system.

The replacement AAA System must provide all of the capabilities of the current AAA, in addition to unfulfilled requirements of the XYZ, while providing enhanced availability, performance, and maintainability.

This section will discuss the findings of the Technical Proof of Concept and the reasons for concluding that Clipper is a viable tool for development of the replacement AAA system.

Throughout this evaluation process, the consultants are specialists in networking, systems development, and database management systems have drawn upon their experiences and those of the Project Advisor. Experts at Computer Associates and the consultants Technology Network were also contacted.

The Technology Network (TNet) provides specialists in specific technology areas for work on projects, world-wide.The TNet experts consulted in this evaluation effort specialize in systems development environments (including Clipper) and database management systems.

The Project Advisor is a central repository of information relating to all projects, world-wide.The project advisor provided information on projects using Clipper in an environment very similar to that currently in place at the XYZ.

Computer Associates (CA) are the makers of Clipper (now called CA-Clipper).CA was consulted regarding the capabilities of Clipper in an environment similar in volumes to that currently in place at the XYZ.CA provided guidance on the performance bottlenecks to be avoided in a system with such large data volumes.

The use of Clipper as a tool for developing the replacement AAA System is constrained by performance factors.

Performance and availability is acceptable in systems which do not have large numbers of distributed users accessing complex data bases. For large Clipper systems, however, a great deal of attention must be paid to the data processing model in order to ensure acceptable levels of performance.

The volume of data that will be captured in the tracking of claim movements and its effect on performance and availability has been a major focus in the Clipper assessment.As data volumes increase, the amount of time required to add, update, query, and report on the data also increases.

In general, it is required that data be retained in an on-line state for one year, at which point the data may be placed in a ready off-line state for two to three years.After three years, the data may be archived for infrequent report access.

As mentioned several times in the request for proposal and supporting documentation, the current AAA is not maintainable.There is no available pool of ZIM knowledge, and as a result the XYZ has been forced to find “work-arounds” and return to manual processes wherever the current AAA fails them.

Clipper has a well-known, intuitive programming language. This enhances the maintainability of a system written in Clipper. Clipper is a local and corporate XYZ standard with many local and XYZ internal experts available for application maintenance.

There will be approximately two million new movement records added to the database each year.This is a large transaction volume no matter what database is in use. Adding records to such a large data store could result in a significant response time degradation.

With this in mind, such updates to the database should not occur when other users may require access.To allow for this, the application should be structured such that potentially lengthy transaction updates are applied to the database in isolation from other types of access.

On-line query, report generation and ACLS extracts may be targeted directly at the off-line database, keeping in mind that the latest transactional updates (e.g. movements entered today) will not be available.

Retention of data for long periods will cause substantial performance degradation in all areas of data access.For this reason, when data is no longer required for frequent access, it should be placed in an off-line read-only area and finally archived.

One of the largest factors impacting database performance under Clipper is the speed at which the database indices are updated.Network communication rate, workstation processor speed, and available memory are the most important factors in increasing the speed of index update.

These performance issues will become increasingly important as the system matures and the volume of data continues to grow. To ensure that performance is maintained to acceptable levels. Operators requiring update access to data should use fast 486 class PCs with at least 8 MB of memory. Clipper developed programs are able to directly access Expanded memory on PCs. The Architectural Issues identified in Section 3.3.5 should be addressed to generally improve network performance.

Clipper databases conform to a widely adopted industry standard definition called X-Base.This means that there are many products available for managing future system growth and enhancement.These include query and reporting tools, executive information systems, and other development tools and environments.

Clipper applications may be extended with other, more powerful, programming languages such as C.This provides the opportunity for seamless integration of new technologies with the application.

Based on the detailed assessment of the XYZ’s technical environment and anticipated requirements of the new system, SHL believes that Clipper will provide an adequate tool for development of the new AAA System.

The main factors considered in this evaluation were the current technical environment, Clipper’s suitability for development of AAA requirements and the ability to attain expected levels of performance and system maintainability.

Clipper may not be an ideal development tool for large systems with complex database structures, high data volumes and large numbers of distributed users. However it is well suited to the new AAA System. The data base structure is fairly straight forward and data volumes for on-line access can be kept low by transferring large transaction files to a read-only area for report generation. Users of the new system are also centralized in a single office and will access the new system with fast 486 class personal computers.

[3]Record sizes are based on XYZ preliminary database design specifications.

[4]ParticipantGrowth figures are not known for non-carrier participants.

CarrierEach carrier may have a license, certificate, and application for both Intra and Westbound programs.

ApplicationApplications that are not authorized are still stored on the system.

LicenseLicenses are renewed each year.This means that yearly license volumes grow by the number indicated plus the number of current carriers.

MovementThe XYZ cost-benefit analysis states that 20% of movements are expected to be submitted in non-electronic form and that of these 20%, only 23.5% will actually be entered into the system.The resulting reduction in total number of movements (306,000) per year is not reflected in this table.

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